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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27532969">Before the Lightning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaMandCheezIts/pseuds/HaMandCheezIts'>HaMandCheezIts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Back to the Future (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Best Friends, Developing Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Formalwear, Friendship, Gen, Letters, Lightning strikes, Music, November 12th, Restaurants, School Dances, Science, Science Experiments, Shopping, Storms, Television Watching</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 06:54:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27532969</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaMandCheezIts/pseuds/HaMandCheezIts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>November 12th is not just about the lightning strike. A very important letter was written that night.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Emmett "Doc" Brown &amp; Marty McFly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Before the Lightning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yeah, I know, I just posted a story yesterday. But I had to acknowledge November 12th, which I believe is the last "<em>Back to the Future</em> Day" this year (unless you count the day Marty leaves 1955 for good, traveling to 1885).</p><p><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> I do not own <em>Back to the Future,</em> Marty McFly, Doctor Emmett L. Brown, Lorraine Baines, George McFly, Biff Tannen, or any other related characters.</p><p>I am writing for fun and feedback, not for profit.</p><p>-ck</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Saturday, November 12th, 1955</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>8:12 P.M.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Hill Valley, California</strong>
</p><p>The waitress at the cashier counter looked at the dapper young man standing anxiously before her. He was one of the few visitors to the café this evening; the bulk of the eatery’s clientele were either at, or currently headed to, the high school’s fall formal.</p><p>“Can I help you?”</p><p>"Y-yeah. Uh, do you have a pen and some paper?”</p><p>She stared at him quizzically. “A pen and paper.”</p><p>“Yeah – yes. I, uh, need to write a note to someone. A letter.” The young man – a teenager, really – rubbed at the back of his neck. His face was solemn. “Um, I can pay you. . . “</p><p>“Oh, dear, that’s not necessary.” Reaching into the area underneath the cash register, the waitress drew out a few pieces of stationery and a matching envelope, both printed with the words <em>Lou’s Café, Hill and Main, Hill Valley, California.</em> She slid them over the glass counter to the teenager. “Will this work?”</p><p>He took the items, scanning them quickly. “Yes, thank you!” He looked up again. “Did you have a pen?”</p><p>When she provided the ink bottle and the fountain pen, the teenager's face twisted strangely. But then he smiled.</p><p>“Perfect.”</p>
<hr/><p>Marty McFly sat in the booth for several minutes, staring at a blank piece of paper and wondering what to write. A cup of coffee sat near him, barely touched and growing cool.</p><p>He knew he was pressed for time. <em>Time, this is all about time. Past, present, future.</em>  He had to pick up his mother (and oh, how he hated even <em>thinking</em> that) and get her to the dance before nine, so they’d be in Doc’s car doing . . . “whatever” when George arrived.</p><p><em>Doc’s car. . .</em>  He’d had a blast the few times he’d been able to drive the Packard this week, and he was still kind of amazed he had permission to use it for his unusual "date" tonight. He’d initially thought Doc might not want a seventeen-year-old stranger behind the wheel of such a fine automobile.</p><p>
  <em>-And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile-</em>
</p><p>He grinned as the Talking Heads lyric popped into his head, but then quickly shook off the distraction. He didn’t have time to be irreverent.</p><p>He <em>had</em> been a stranger, that first night he’d knocked on young Doc’s door. At least, a stranger to Doc. For Marty it had been just another experience of meeting someone he kind of recognized; viewing an unfamiliar side to someone he’d thought he knew. The differences in his parents had been easier to explain – he was seeing them as teenagers, kids who lived at home and were still in school. But Doc, even though he was thirty years younger than the 1985 Doc that Marty knew, was an adult. So Marty had thought, no matter how illogically, that he and this young Doc would have the same relationship that he had with his present-day Doc.</p><p>It hadn’t started out that way. Doc had been surprised, suspicious, and almost afraid of the teenager's friendly, comfortable manner. There were several occasions when Doc had started to ask Marty just how exactly they were friends, only to catch himself and forbid Marty to answer, declaring it unwise to know too much about his own future. After the fourth time this happened, Marty had said, exasperated, “I help you with stuff, okay?!” and that had been the end of it.</p><p>But as the days (and the work on the time machine) had progressed, something odd had begun to happen. Doc had started to treat Marty not only as a friend, but almost as a family member. They’d shared dinner duties. They’d talked about girls. They’d talked about music. They’d watched television together. When Marty needed a suit for the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, Doc had suggested a shopping excursion. Marty had been able to come along without looking out of place, as he now had regular fifties clothes from Doc’s earlier shopping spree. (That time, Marty - still clad in his 1985 attire - had stayed behind in the mansion with Copernicus.)</p><p>Marty had only needed to try on three formal outfits before the salesman and Doc had declared the houndstooth-like jacket, white dress shirt, modestly patterned red tie, and charcoal-grey slacks the winner. Doc had even gotten him new shoes, black and white wingtips very similar to Doc's own (Marty had initially wanted to borrow Doc's shoes, but they were just too big), and later the scientist had helped Marty get dressed for the dance. It had felt like a father-son moment, especially when Doc had loaned him a fancy tie clip.</p><p>“You sure you want me to wear this?” Marty had asked, fingering the accessory as he gazed in the mirror at his surprisingly well-dressed image. "What if I lose it?"</p><p>“If I was worried about you borrowing something of mine, it would be the car,“ Doc had answered, grinning. </p><p>It had been one of those “normal” moments that had happened among the chaos. In between Doc creating a replica of Hill Valley and fashioning a “lightning harness” on the DeLorean and frantically writing up drawings and calculating figures and gathering materials for the big lightning strike experiment; in between Marty befriending / scaring the crap out of / giving fighting lessons to his father and attempting to avoid his mother and trying to not get pounded by Biff . . . he and Doc had just been friends. They’d laughed at jokes. They’d shared fears and desires (as much as Marty could without revealing any future events). Doc had told Marty some details of his past that 1985 Doc had never divulged, either because 1985 Doc didn’t recall the events as clearly, or maybe because they had just never come up.</p><p>But Marty wanted to give 1985 Doc the chance to share those same facts - or, at least, to remember that he had already shared them with Marty in 1955.</p><p>It was in those ordinary moments that Marty most missed “his” Doc. In the three years that he’d been Doc’s assistant, Marty had come to know the man as less of an employer and more as a friend. Someone he could come to when he had problems at school, at home, with Jennifer. Someone who never judged him, but instead listened and commiserated and advised with care and respect. They were fond of each other, they didn’t lie to each other, and Marty didn’t know anyone he trusted more.</p><p>Okay, the danger Doc had placed Marty in when the Libyans came to avenge their "borrowed" plutonium might not have been Doc’s finest hour. But it had been an error of hubris, not a conscious decision to put his and Marty’s lives at risk. It shouldn’t have to be Doc’s final hour.</p><p>
  <em>It <strong>won’t</strong> be Doc’s final hour. </em>
</p><p>“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Marty said quietly.</p><p>So he set (fountain) pen to paper, and began to write.<strong>  </strong></p><p>
  <strong> <em>END</em> </strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The lyric that Marty remembers is from the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime," from their 1980 album <em>Remain in Light.</em></p></blockquote></div></div>
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